Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S1 · Q23 For each action we perform

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For each action we perform, we can know only some of its consequences.

Conclusion

If "morally right" = "action has best consequences", then we can never no what action is morally right.

Evidence

For each action we perform, we can know only some of its consequences.

Evaluate

The conclusion is a conditional claim, "if X, then Y". When we evaluate conditional conclusions, we're essentially granting to the author the hypothetical truth of the "if" part. If you wanted to, you could add the "if" part to the premises.

But in this case, I think it's nice to just sit with the conclusion for a second to hear what it's really saying. Since "morally right" appears in the "if" and the "then" part of the conditional, it's allowing us to synthesize this into an easier to digest conclusion.

Consider this analogy:

Assumption? "My old coworker Tommy is a jerk".

Now try it on the conclusion: .

Assumption? .

So the author is really trying to conclude that .

Why? Because in all situations, we only know some of the consequences of an action.

Goal

In order to get from that premise to that conclusion, we would need something like

only know some of don't know if the consequences → action has the best of an action consequences

23.

The conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. On some occasions we can

    Unrelated to Goal

    This answer has nothing to do with closing the gap between "only know some consequences" and "don't know best consequences". Our author is saying that "we'll never know morally right", and this answer is saying "we'll sometimes know morally wrong". Does the latter prove the former? Definitely not. If anything, it weakens the former, since it establishes that it's sometimes possible to know something is morally not-right.

    3% picked this

  2. On some occasions we can

    Unrelated to Goal Weakens, if anything

    This answer has nothing to do with closing the gap between "only know some consequences" and "don't know best consequences". Our author is saying that "if X is true, then we'll never know morally right", and this answer is saying "we'll sometimes know morally right". Does the latter prove the former? Definitely not. If anything, it weakens the former, since it establishes that it's sometimes possible to know something is morally right.

    14% picked this

  3. Correct

    Knowing that an action has

    Why this is right

    The verb "requires" is the same as the conditional arrow, so this looks like this: knowing action has → knowing all consequences best consequences of that action Many, many, many correct answers on Sufficient Assumption are written in the contrapostive form of what we were looking for, so if it has the right type of language, we should consider contraposing it. Here, we would get: if we don't know all we don't know whether the consequences → that action had the best of some action consequences Our author established that for each action, we will know only some consequences. So according to this rule, for each action, we will not know whether that action had the best consequences. Thus, we've proven the author's conclusion that we'll never know if an action had the best consequences.

    Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    75% picked this

  4. Only the immediate consequences of

    Weakens, if anything

    This is closer than (A) and (B), but because it's not dealing with "best consequences" (the new term in the Conclusion) it can't possibly allow us to derive that "we never know if an action had the best consequences". The fact that this answer is stressing that all we need for moral assessments are the immediate consequences makes it seem to almost go against the argument. The author never specified whether the "only some" consequences we know for each action are its immediate consequences or its long-term ones, but common sense would suggest that it's easier to see the immediate consequences than the long-term consequences of any action. Our author wants to show it's hopeless to determine whether something is morally right, because you won't ever know all the eventual consequences, so you won't be able to assess whether that action had "the best" consequences. This answer seems to go against that, saying we would only need to assess the immediate consequences.

    5% picked this

  5. An action may be morally

    Unrelated to Goal

    This answer has nothing to do with closing the gap between "only know some consequences" and "don't know best consequences". Since "best consequences" was a new term in the conclusion, it must be in the correct answer (only one answer choice actually had that required New Term). This answer is conveying the notion that morally right actions differ from person to person, but that doesn't allow us to mathematically derive the author's conclusion, which is that "in no situation can we know whether an action had the best consequences".

    3% picked this

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